Then, sadly, a bunch of Catholics embarrass themselves hoping and speculating in the comboxes that he is Antichrist anyway. Some of the commentary runs:

Well Mr. Akin… it crushed me… but I know you are right… I saw the title and was hopeful… alas, I was wrong…
Good work, even if it isn’t what I wanted to hear!
***
Aw, darn it! Mr. Video Maker really “tickled my ears,” until I read what Jimmy had to say. Now I just feel silly!
***
Well…..
Barack Obama is not THE Antichrist but AN Antichrist like all the other Antichrist’s that have existed throughout the ages.
***
Nah, but I personally believe he is a “forerunner” of the one who is yet to come (if the anti-christ is an actual person that is).To be fair, he is the most evil, hateful politician of any party this country has ever seen. Not quite as bad as Hitler and Stalin, but sometimes I wonder how close.
***
It’s all very interesting—this person’s claim and your rebuttal, but what I find disheartening is that there is nothing about President Obama that suggests calling him the Antichrist is absurd. He has spoken no words, performed no actions that could not come from the mouth of the Antichrist.
***
While I agree that this particular argument in this particular video doesn’t support Obama as the Anti-Christ, it doesn’t mean that he is not. Nor that Obama isn’t the forerunner of the anti-christ.
***I can certainly say that I would entertain the idea that Obama could be the anti-christ, or one of many anti-christs, or as Marty said “the forerunner of the anti-christ to come.”
***I figure Rahm Emmanuel for the antichrist. He’s the personage behind the president. He coordinates what the presdint does, much like Karl Rove was the grand strategist for George Bush. Obama can’t function without his telepromopter, so someone’s writing it for him. Rahm Emmanuel is Jewish. Even the name Emmanuel means something akin to “christ”. Too bad Rahm doesn’t mean “anti”, then you’d have your answer. :-)
***Clearly he wants to detroy the united states , but if he is the anty CHIST.
DO NO WORRY, JUST REMEMBER who made him

My comment:
The numerous comments expressing disappointment that Obama might not be the Antichrist, or hoping to find some other way to cling to the utterly ridiculous notion that he is, or firmly asserting that, even if he isn’t the Antichrist (which he still might be! Hope Hope!) we can all agree that he is the most evil politician in American history, just short of Hitler and Stalin, is a sort of silly suburban cowardice that seems to have no real appreciation of what real martyrs who have suffered under real tyrants have gone through. It is an insult to the memory of millions of suffering human beings around the world and down through time to watch this absurd combox thread unspool and serious comparison be made between this timid and tepid politician and Hitler(!) and/or Stalin(!!). It’s every bit as ridiculous as the Bushitler rhetoric of the Left. Get a grip, people.

When Obama orders you and your loved ones and millions upon millions of other Christians to be horsewhipped, machine-gunned, used for torches in his gardens, roasted on spits, gassed to death, flayed alive, drawn and quartered, or hung upside down and slowly lowered into vats of excrement to drown like the Japanese martyrs, then we can start talking about him as “the Antichrist”. Till then, spare me the latest celebrations of the Feast of the ASCII Martyrs. I hate having to write in defense of an Administration I think so little of. But the fact is, there’s lots to oppose about this Administration without deploying the fevered nonsense of religious imaginations inflamed by too much Talk Radio. Does he need to be opposed for much of his policy and rhetoric? Of course! His support for abortion, his nomination of Kagan, his enthusiasm for homosexual “pride”, his eagerness to drive us into world-historical levels of debt, his sleepy response to the oil spill, his Nobel Peace Prize Winning continuance of our disastrous foreign adventures are none of them anything I’m thrilled about. And I realize people are speaking out of a deep sense of fear about the economy, the giganticism of government, the war, the growing hostility of our culture to the faith, etc. That fear can sometimes lead us to say exaggerated things.

But that doesn’t mean that Catholics should embrace any crazy religio-political nonsense they happened to pick up on the web or the radio or FOX or abandon all semblance of charity or common sense when addressing Obama. You and I have it great in this country. Let’s not insult real martyrs by comparing a drop in our IRA portfolios with their agonies. When you do that, you stop thinking. And when you stop thinking you start letting somebody else think for you. So, for instance, last week I had readers springing to the defense of the cockamamie historical pronouncements of Glenn Beck with statements about how great a researcher he is in digging up the dirt on Obama. One reader, darkly hinting that Obama is really a Muslim and greatly agitated by what appeared to be his bizarre theory that Obama was plotting to establish the Jihad on our soil wrote:

How about this quote from his book Audacity of Hope…“I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction”. There is more, much more, but you just keep focusing on Glen Beck’s misguided take on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Actual quote from “The Audacity of Hope” [pg. 261]: “Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

I pointed out that Obama was, in fact, addressing Arabs and Pakistani Americans, not Muslims, and that lots of Arab Americans are, in fact, fellow Catholics (just visit a Maronite Church). I asked the guy about Obama’s actual quote, “This is a problem why? Do think the Executive should not resist a mob call to intern an entire population of people based on their race or religion?”

What followed was a strenuous attempt on the part of the reader to not face the fact that Obama never said what the reader desperately wanted to persist in believing he said—as well as a perfect illustration of the “Ay-rabs are all a bunch of Muslim terrorists anyway” mentality that prompted Obama’s remarks. You can read the whole wearying exchange yourself if you have the endurance.

Finally, defeated by facts, the guy concluded, not with a concession that Obama never said what the reader claimed, but with the dark indicting words: “I’m truthfully starting to wonder about you as it relates to Obama’s cult.”

Cuz, you know, not crediting every cockamamie rumor about Obama in the teeth of easily documentable evidence to the contrary does make one an “Obama cultist” in some people’s worlds.

These are the words of somebody who has decided to let somebody else (in this case, his favorite Talk Radio pundits and websites) do his thinking for him. He doesn’t care that his “quote” is documentably false. He just cares that it’s useful for attacking his ideological enemy. And so he uncritically accepts what his ideological tutors tell him. They belong to the correct Tribe. And anybody who questions them is vehemently suspect of belonging to the Wrong Tribe: the Tribe of Obama Cultists.

All this tendency to hope that a person is even worse than one thought is what C.S. Lewis is warning about when he writes (about Nazis, by the way, not about a mere schlickmeister like Obama)

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

That’s the first danger of that kind of thinking. It can send you to Hell if you persist in it.

The second danger is this: sin makes you stupid. That is, it “darkens the intellect” as the Church has always warned. So when you adopt sinful methods to win in fights that really have merit to them, you wind up fighting stupid and often sabotaging your own cause, even when it is a just cause.

But here’s the funny thing. Obama’s dramatic act of overreach here does not trouble the very people who tend to play around with all the “Obama is the Antichrist” nonsense—because they are frequently enthusiasts for the War on Terror, they are more likely than average Americans to support war crimes when it comes to that war, and they think such exercises of Executive Power keep them safe. Now I have no problem with fighting radical Islamists who want to kill innocent people. It seems to me to fulfil the “just cause” or ius ad bellum portion of Just War teaching. However, the other part of Just War teaching, ius in bello tells us that just because you are at war does not mean that you can do anything, no matter how grossly immoral or stupid, in order to win. A lot of Catholics don’t really get that, so we’ve heard a lot of nonsense about the rightness of torture or sweeping away the rule of law (as Obama has just swept it away), just to win the war on terror. We pushed for it with Bush and now that Obama is going even further than Bush, many on the Right, following their ideological instructors in Right Wing Media, agree. So out of a tribal fealty to these ideological priorities, conservative Catholics, right in the middle of their crackpot “Antichrist” theorizing, simply overlook real instances of Obama’s extremely dangerous whittling at the Constitution while indulging crazy fantasy theories that he is also just about to start puking pea soup, butchering Christians by the millions, and proclaiming himself the God of the Universe in a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.

That why I find this weird. There are real dangers with this Administration. The “ends justify the means” thinking that undergirds abortion now undergirds an executive mandate to commit murder without arrest, evidence or trial against anybody, foreigner or citizen, the Executive designates as an enemy of the State. But many Catholics keep focusing on fantasy scenarios about Obama the Antichrist (which makes the Church look ridiculous) and ignoring those dangers that happen to be approved by some of the more zealous proponents of Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary—because they are letting somebody else do their tribal thinking for them. The problem is not that Obama is about to declare himself the God of the Universe. It’s not that he’s just about to clap all Christians into concentration camps or inaugurate a vast campaign of slaughter and persecution against the Church. (Indeed, the Obama Administration recently sided with Rome in protecting its immunity from one of the recent frenzied and silly attempts to haul the Pope into US Courts.) It’s that he’s another American politician who is continuing a long trend of slowly whittling away at the Constitution. It’s that he’s paving the way for some future politician who will (no doubt in reaction to an emergency, either real or manufactured) start purging “elements” from American society deemed a threat to the regime. But if we acknowledge *that* then we’d have to look at members of our own tribe who have likewise labored to pave that road to tyranny—and we don’t want to do that because it would threaten our tribal allegiances. This leads to the supreme irony: that Obama’s own supporters are starting to get that Obama has seriously betrayed his office (and are experiencing buyer’s remorse):

Meanwhile, not a few of his conservative Christian critics, in their zeal to say anything and everything to attack him, forget completely the words of Scripture (“love does not rejoice in evil, but rejoices with the truth”) and wind up saying any cockamamie thing that comes to hand, including the weird charges that he is, simultaneously, the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter the Incompetent and a diabolical fiend bent on Global Domination, the destruction of the United States, and the annihilation of the Church, a man who may well be a willing servant of Satan and a secret Jihadist and The Antichrist, all while ignoring the fact that back here on earth, he can be credibly charged with expanding on the dangerous legal policies of his predecessors and with really dangerous fiscal policies—all without being Rosemary’s Baby. Such people need to take deep cleansing breaths and calm down. Then they need to mount Antichrist/Hitler/Stalin-rhetoric free arguments rooted in reality and not in bizarre conspiracy theories that normal people tune out as the ravings of hysterics. Lord knows there’s material for such critiques.

Also u compare Hitler and Obama. What was Germany like in 1934?
As I said Hitler was popular among the worlds media
Being on the cover of time if I’m not mistKen and also a Nobel
Prize ( I could be wrong about that) These things don’t happen overnight. As far as the enabling act and gaining dictatorial
Power why seek that when u already have it? The Patriot Act
Was a huge step in that direction. As far as a Reichstag type of event
Hey we’ve o ly bgwm under his administration for less than 2 years
As easy as it sounds being a student of history u soon realie that
Truth is stranger than fiction and the amount of time
People I.e. A country can change the qui knees is mind boggling
And unbelievable if u didn’t have the e Odense look at Germany the most ad aced culture in Europe at the time and in 5 or so years
They were consenting to the unheard of granted the aftermath of wwi made
This easier but still u just don’t expect change like that so fast

Posted by Jay Smith on Monday, Aug, 30, 2010 7:47 PM (EDT):

There is so much wrong with this article that I don’t even know where
To begin. First of all, the bible says he who denies
The Father and Son is Antichrist. Anyone who has read
Audacity of Hope knows Obama clung to the church
Because of it’s organizing potential. Therefore
If he really doesn’t believe he could be cLled Antichrist. Now
I’m not of course claiming that he is but the writer of this article is really betraying his prejudice more than anything. Oh don’t u know that’s not the intellectual “cool” thing to say someone is the anti hrist, etc. I would like to ask who and what qualities would constitute being called the anti hrist. Of course we all know the reason one pokes fun at these theories is because it sounds to crazy. What is the Catholic position on the end times? As far as murdering millions yes actually he does but in a more slick way he contributes to the murder of innocent children. His first act was to overturn the Mexico City Policy. Did Hitler not when the Noble Peace pre or come close to it 8 I know he was times man of the year. ITo sum up I’m not saying by any means that Obama is the anti hrist but to resort to name calling basically calling these people nuts and not debating the issue is a tale tell sign that u cannot win the debate. I know one could win the debate but actually engage the issue rather than dismissing it out of hand because it’s the cool intellectual thing to do to turn up ones nose at those simpletons

Funny. I remember all the conservatives who made statements something like this:
“Conservatives think Liberals are (dangerously) wrong. Liberals think Conservatives are evil.”
If necessary, use Democrat/Republican in place of Liberal/Conservative. It would now seem that it no longer applies, and there is a significant chunk of conservatives willing to use the “evil” label for the President. Not only “evil”, but the very embodiment of evil on Earth.

Nothing like reversing course so far that you shoot right past the other guy.

Posted by M. Jordan Lichens on Monday, Jun, 21, 2010 2:49 AM (EDT):

Sir,
I just want to say one thing: If the President is the anti-Christ then the Powers of Darkness are really lacking.

Posted by LRoy on Saturday, Jun, 19, 2010 11:11 AM (EDT):

Whether Obama is the anti-christ or not is moot.

He IS one of-if not THE worst-president we have ever had.

Kind of makes me think even Nixon was okay.

Posted by Mark P. Shea on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 3:30 PM (EDT):

Just as many good German people bought the good intentions of Hitler in the early stages of his rise to power, many good people have bought into the promises of Obama.

Oh, come *on*, will ya? Hitler telegraphed his intentions in Mein Kampf and in the street violence of the SA. Do you *really* believe that Audacity of Hope and Dreams from my Father contain secret coded plans for establishing a dictatorship and then launching a race war against Canada and Mexico in order to create living space for the Black Master Race? Almost his first move, upon becoming Chancellor, was to use panic over the Reichstag Fire to pass the Enabling Act that gave him sweeping dictatorial powers and outlawed all political opposition. Obama’s been President for a year and half in the middle of a grave and growing economic and geopolitical crisis. No Enabling Act. No brawling SA units intimidating political opponents with smashed windows, arson, kidnapping, and murder. No concentration camps. All this sort of claptrap is as silly as the fear that Bush was going to appoint himself Fuehrer. Is Obama doing damage. Yes. Has Obama given the slightest indication that he is “going to position himself as a dictator”. Again I say: get a grip.

Posted by Mark P. Shea on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 2:35 PM (EDT):

Steve:

Just so. One of the problems with the way we talk about Obama’s abortion support (which is, for the record, abominable) is that we fail to grasp how our abortion culture works. Obama has never performed an abortion. *We private citizens do that.*

Moreover, we private citizens—including, especially prolifers—are given to voting for and even rejoicing over the election of politicians whose views on abortion and human life are virtually indistinguishable from Obama’s when our tribal elders tell us to do so. Case in point: <a href=“http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?opti>Scott Brown</a>.

Until we can break away from the habit of thinking tribally according to our preferences in Talk Radio gurus and favorite website talking points and start letting our thinking be formed by the Church, we will continue to talk nonsense.

Posted by Micah Murphy on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 2:04 PM (EDT):

Of course there is no credible evidence behind the claim that he is the anti-Christ. Moreover, the birth pangs Christ mentioned are not present. Still, if he is, it’s true that he wouldn’t necessarily appear to be yet. For all we know, it’s possible, but we also don’t judge people on what’s possible. While he has not started any overt attacks on Christians, we also can’t forget that he backs the mass genocide of the unborn. How numb is his conscience? Is it possible that he could be a more overt threat to Christians, especially if it became politically expedient? We shouldn’t judge the things he might do and we shouldn’t give into a fearful anxiety, but I think it’s fair to be concerned and vigilant. Aside from that, though, calling him the Antichrist is unfounded.

While it’s true that the evil of abortion is comparable to the evil of the Holocaust, Obama’s culpability in the abortion holocaust is not remotely comparable to the culpability of Hitler in the Holocaust. The abortion holocaust was not personally planned by Obama and his minions and carried out at his orders by his officers and troops. Obama is merely one of a long line of pro-death government figures.

Moral responsibility for the abortion holocaust is decentralized not only among a great many figures in government (high court justices, members of Congress, past presidents and others) but also among the abortionists and the women and men who actually acted as judge, jury and executioner.

Consider: All three branches of government could be 100 percent pro-death and they could pass every pro-death edict they liked, and that in itself would not kill one baby. Every baby who dies was sentenced either by the mother or by someone pressuring the mother. If all couples were open to life, the body count would be zero, no matter how pro-death the laws were.

The Holocaust was completely different. Hitler didn’t just facilitate laws making it possible for private citizens to kill unwanted Jews. He and his subordinates effected the Holocaust. The moral culpability is of a totally different order of magnitude.

Posted by Sarah on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 1:15 PM (EDT):

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Posted by Ann on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 12:48 PM (EDT):

We do have to guard against complacency when it comes to judging this man. He is not Hitler or Stalin but throughout his political career he has worked to ensure that the number of abortions in this country will continue to grow. 50 million plus. Does that surpass Hitler and Stalin yet? When? How evil do his policies have to be before we become outrages? He may not be the Anti Chirst but he is certainly in league with the enemy whether he knows it or not. Confusion reigns when dealing with Obama and his crowd. Evil is good, good is evil. Confusion is our enemy just as surely as any person, where does confusion come from? The evil one of course.

The issue of whether we are facing true persecution is interesting. Certainly not in the same way as most martyrs have but perhaps that is part of the confusion of the evil one as well. “You know, it’s not that bad. No need to become outraged.” So we are softened up to accept little persections and before we realize it it is too late. We do need to be careful here and excercise discernment and prudential judgement over situations always keeping the big, long term picture in mind.

Obams as the anti Christ and the issue of persecution is part of the larger spiritual battle that we are engage in. Neither should be dismissed nor overblown. Mark is right, the ggest danger is that Christians become un Christian while fighting this battle (confusion again) and fight agains each other as well as the enemy.

God bless.

Posted by Phil on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 12:42 PM (EDT):

The left will always use stupid, ignorant statements to marginalize their opponents. Since the bulk of the news media are in their pocket, this kind of propaganda smear is standard operating procedure by now. It is an effective tactic, all the more so since the major public institutions of this country (press, education, government, arts, etc.) are all reading from the same prayer book. The other factor is the shocking ignorance of the Catholics. Poorly catechized, poorly led, and numbed by the corruption and scandals that are gleefully pounced on by the media, they are easy prey for fanatics within the Church and Evangelicals outside.

Is there a bright side? Yes. We may be ignorant but we are not stupid. And ignorance can be remedied. The Catholics who helped put Obama in the White House can help kick him out.

Good article.

Posted by Rachel on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 10:56 AM (EDT):

Thank you, also, for pointing out the lack of perspective in seeing our struggles as being horrific. Any claims that what we are enduring is equal to the real horrors and tortures of martyrs past is embarrassing as well as historically inaccurate.

Today innocent people will die based on their religion, their race and their inability to defend themselves from criminals and a real lack of food and clean water. I can find it hard to raise any sympathy towards the posters who will face nothing more than a plate of food, their computer and their TV’s.

Like you, I have no love and little respect for this Administration but let’s not think any o us is somehow worthy of the term ‘martyr’.

Posted by John Thrippleton on Friday, Jun, 18, 2010 9:22 AM (EDT):

Although I share your sorrow that so many have jumped to assumptions on th extent of evil this administration will unleash on our country, my feeling on whether Obama is the/a Antichrist is that we will unfortunately not be able to accurately compare him to other tyranical leaders until his full body of work is complete. By then it will be too late. Just as many good German people bought the good intentions of Hitler in the early stages of his rise to power, many good people have bought into the promises of Obama. I hope and pray for all our sake that Obama doesn’t somehow position himself as a dictator and those of the democratic party and electorate do not blind themselves to this man’s shortcomings as a leader or under estimate his ambitions. Germany still has problems coming to terms with the shame Hitler brought upon their people.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.